9/11 created heated rivalry between FBI, NYPD

Officers, agents sometimes step on each other's toes in inquiries

When terrorists toppled the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, the New York Police Department vowed to take extraordinary measures to prevent the next attack.

"We couldn't just say, 'Well, we'll let the federal government take care of it,' " said Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne. "When you have 3,000 New Yorkers murdered, you can't say we're going to defer that whole responsibility elsewhere."

In the past decade, the NYPD has built up a smothering anti-terror apparatus, with more than 1,000 officers working counterterrorism, radiation detectors installed in the city and detectives assigned to 11 locations overseas.

The powerful police presence, unprecedented in a U.S. city, has led to periodic rivalries with the federal agency charged with protecting Americans from domestic attacks: the FBI.

Those tensions have flared twice recently, including when an FBI-led task force questioned the evidence against two men charged in May by state prosecutors with telling an NYPD undercover detective about their desire to attack synagogues.

This week, New York City officials held a dramatic news conference to announce the arrest of Jose Pimentel, a man suspected of being an al-Qaida sympathizer, who was charged with plotting to bomb police and post offices and U.S. troops returning home. Missing from the tableau were the federal agents and prosecutors who typically lead major terrorism probes. That's because the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force, in consultation with the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office, decided the case was not currently prosecutable in federal court.

In interviews, federal law-enforcement officials expressed doubts about Pimentel's capacity to carry out an attack and the strength of the case, which is being prosecuted by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

They said that Pimentel had been under the influence of narcotics and that a police informant, who allegedly accompanied Pimentel as he bought bomb-making supplies, had actively participated in the plot. That, they said, made it possible for Pimentel to argue he was entrapped.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said the case reflects broader frustration among some in the FBI. Although NYPD personnel assigned to the FBI's task force concurred with the decision about Pimentel, they said, the NYPD's Intelligence Division took the case to the district attorney.

"There are always going to be tensions, because agencies are made of human beings," one federal agent said, "but is the solution to carve out a piece of your agency and start autonomously working terrorism investigations? What sense does that make?"

Added a second federal agent: "The (NYPD) Intelligence Division is an empire unto itself, and one hand doesn't necessarily know what the other is doing. They're trying to have it both ways, and that is flat-out wrong."

But the agent added that, in the Pimentel case, "in a sense, the system worked."

"The case didn't disappear, and nobody got hurt," the agent added.

Browne, the NYPD deputy commissioner, rejected the criticism and said local officials are confident the case is strong. He said that police used at least four confidential informants and undercover police officers over 31 months of interactions with Pimentel and that they have credible witnesses to testify against him.

"These critics are trying to undermine a success," Browne said. "We had someone making a bomb and saying they were going to blow it up in New York City. The NYPD is intent on stopping that, regardless of how it's prosecuted."

He said that police give the FBI-led task force first crack at terrorism leads and that the overall relationship between the two agencies, although it has endured some "rough spots," is "much improved recently."

FBI-NYPD relations, vital to protecting the nation's largest city, are by no means dysfunctional.

Officials in both agencies say they work together smoothly in most instances, including the investigation of last year's failed Times Square bombing attempt. It is also not unusual for federal and state officials to consult and decide to prosecute a case in one jurisdiction or another.